A Nation of Minions and Monsters

Last month another gunman slaughtered twenty-six people in a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. I woke that morning to the awful news and all morning while I took care of my 13 month old granddaughter I day dreamed...of the grandparents whose grandchildren are never coming home again. No dream. This was true, gut wrenching true. So I dreamed on...how awful is the president of the NRA, how does he sleep at night, would I throw him in a cage if I could, would silencing him let children live?

And then I came to my senses. One person isn't that powerful, not in our cradle of democracy. One person does not have "one ring to rule them all...and in the darkness bind them." This is not Russia, China, or Saudi Arabia, much less Tolkien's Middle Earth. We are not a people of minions led by a Monster. Lately I feel as though we are being led by a minion. But my biggest disappointment is not the leader of our nation or the leader of the NRA or the white supremacist groups that are rearing their shaven heads. 

My biggest disappointment is the silent majority who have not yet lost a child or grandchild or sister or mother or dear friend to a leaden volley, who continue to elect legislators who will not pass serious gun laws. There are some who have lost family to gun violence and who still love the second amendment, and I respect them. I think they are nuts, but I respect their right to be nuts. But 75% of Americans do not own guns, and I am skeptical that even a quarter of these non-gun owners put a high premium on the right to bear automatic weapons. Yet there is no outcry against these weapons. Who is mad? The demented soul who fired the gun or the silent masses who have no problem selling him the gun?

No, silencing the head of the NRA, whoever the hell he is, will not cure the madness that afflicts us. We are a monstrous people, we are a land of monsters. We enslaved Africans, robbed Native Americans, imprisoned Asians, murdered countless people of color, worked factory folks to the bone until unions took hold, all in the name of supremacy, privilege (white of course), capitalism, survival of the fittest. And now we prefer to honor an archaic amendment rather than create an environment in which our children can grow up safely. We call the gunslingers insane, but we are the monsters.